What Might Have Been
by iluvtorun
Summary: He had imagined a hundred different scenarios of how things would end in his head, but none of them had included this one. She wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to die. He had imagined scenarios where Slade went after Thea or Laurel or Sara. Major Character Death, spoilers through 2x21. Angst and Angst, so be warned. T for graphic nature and language.
1. It's a beautiful night

_AN: This is a very angsty piece, so please proceed with caution. Major character death occurs, so please don't continue if you don't feel like reading that. This is in no way how I think the season will play out, but I couldn't pass up the angst. Plus honestly, if the writers truly plan on sticking to an O/L endgame, sooner or later we'll see something like this. The title was inspired by the song by Little Texas._

It wasn't supposed to end this way.

He had imagined a hundred different scenarios of how things would end in his head, but none of them had included this one.

She wasn't supposed to die. _He _was supposed to die. He had imagined scenarios where Slade went after Thea or Laurel or Sara. Slade had gone after his mother and taken her away forever. But he had never imagined the scenario where it was Felicity was on her knees in front of Slade.

She opened her tear-filled blue eyes and met his. And _God_, but he could see his entire future in that instant, if he hadn't been so stubborn. If he wouldn't have held her at arm's length for the past year. He could see nights where he could sleep, and waking up in her arms. He could see her smiling at him, and telling him the things he so desperately needed to hear. The things he didn't _deserve_ to hear, but the words that gave him hope.

_Like a hero._

_Maybe there's another way._

Right now, he could not see any way out of this situation. He had an arrow filled with the cure nocked in his bow, but there was no way he'd be fast enough. Slade already had his sword out, grinning at him.

"I told you one more had to die," he chuckled, running his hand roughly through Felicity's hair.

She held his gaze, shaking her head. He could hear her voice, see what she was saying in her gaze. _This isn't your fault_.

"Not her, Slade. She never did anything to you." If he fired now, Slade would either use the sword or block the shot. Either way, he lost. Either way, Slade would kill her.

"You _knew_, and you left this one unguarded."

There was so much truth in his words. He hadn't seen it. _Why _hadn't he seen it. She had practically laid it out for him, when he had fought with Sara a few weeks ago. He had found hope—because of her and Diggle. They had kept the darkness from pulling him under, had kept him from drowning in the darkness.

"_You can not die until you have suffered as I have suffered. Until you have known complete despair. And you will. I promise." _He could hear Slade's voice in perfect clarity, as he had delivered his promise in the dank freighter off the coast of Lian Yu.

Proof that the island would never leave him.

"I have decided," Slade said slowly, "that death is release you will not feel. At least not from my hand. I will not grant you that peace."

Oliver realized then that time had run out, and it was now or never. Slade was raising his sword, and he fired his bow. But Slade was inhumanly fast, and while he didn't block the arrow, Oliver was still too late. Slade had taken the sword, and plunged it through her from behind. When Slade had killed his mother, she had died instantly. But for some reason, he wanted Felicity to suffer. He knew from the angle and direction that there would be no saving her, and that she would bleed out slowly before his eyes.

The arrow struck home, in the center of Slade's chest, and he shot the second, filled with venom to incapacitate him.

And then he was by her side, his hand pressing to the gaping wound in her stomach, left when Slade had pulled the sword back with him as he fell. He felt the slick warm wetness, and knew that even more blood was pouring from her back. _No, no, no_. Not this, never this. He had never in his worst nightmares imagined this.

_We can protect her_. He'd told that to Diggle, back when he had first brought her into this. When he was nearly incapacitated from blood loss. They hadn't protected her. Diggle was off trying to save Carly from some of Slade's men, and he had been trying to find Laurel, who had been yet another distraction in Slade's game of chess. The double distraction had made them leave the most vulnerable member of their team unguarded.

He felt her hand grasp his, and he was suddenly grounded in the present. He was going to watch her die, and as much as he didn't want to do that, he could hardly _not _look at her. Because these were the last moment he would ever have with her. "Oliver . . . " she said his name so softly, and he could hear in it all the things she wanted to say.

He felt his chest tighten as her other hand came up to touch his cheek. He closed his eyes at her soft touch, and cupped her hand with his. "Felicity . . . Just hang on."

"No," she said. "You know, and I know, so let's not lie. We don't lie to each other."

He shook his head, and swallowed thickly. He tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come out past the tightness in his throat.

"This isn't your fault. And you . . ." she closed her eyes, and he moved his hands to her face. The one that had been trying to staunch the bleeding from her stomach left a garish painting of red on her pale skin, adding to the caked blood at her temple and under her nose from the earlier accident. Not yet. He couldn't lose her yet. She opened her eyes again, and he felt the slightest release of the pressure. "You can't run anymore. You have to live, Oliver. Promise me." She took a wet, ragged breath. "Promise me you'll live here and now, not back there. Not anymore."

He heard a shout, and knew that Dig had arrived. His friend skidded down to his knees on her other side, and took her hands. "Felicity . . . " The sound coming from John Diggle sounded like a moan.

She turned her eyes to him and smiled. "Hi, John." Her eyes shifted back to Oliver. "Promise," she said again.

He couldn't. He couldn't promise her this, because how could he possibly go forward from this. He had brought her into this world, and in doing so he had signed her death certificate. But then she reached up with one hand and took his, so that she was holding on to both him and Dig, and he knew that he couldn't deny her this. He would tell her whatever she wanted to hear. "I promise," he choked, and felt the wetness sliding down his face.

"I love you both," she sighed. "My boys . . ." Her eyes drifted between him and Dig, and then lost their focus somewhere in between the two of them. He knew that he cried her name, and that he pulled her into his lap, but his memory became hazy. She was gone. He had brought her into this world, and she was gone. Never again would she bring him coffee or sit watching him when she didn't think he was paying attention. She would never be able to call him on his shit again.

He felt Dig try to pull her away from him, saying his name. He tightened his grasp, not wanting to let her go. If he didn't let her go, he wouldn't have to live in this new world where her light was gone. "Oliver, they are almost here, you have to _go_." He finally looked up, and was almost shocked when he saw Dig's red-rimmed eyes. Tears flowed freely down his face, but it was his eyes that really surprised Oliver. Dig's eyes looked dead—devoid of hope. He supposed his looked the same. He shook his head. It didn't matter if they caught him now.

But Dig started prying his hands off of her. "You don't get to lie to her now, Oliver. You _promised_." Dig pulled her limp body out of his lap. "Now go. Go change, they'll call you soon enough."

Oliver pushed himself up, dazed. John Diggle sat in the pool of blood and pulled her into his own lap, still holding her limp hand as he stared over the rooftop at the city. It was a strangely beautiful night, still and quiet now that most of the fires caused by the mirakuru soldiers hours before had been put out. The sky was clear, and the stars blinked more brightly than they had in months. That seemed wrong, because she was dead, and the world should be dark, The night should not be beautiful. The police were coming, and he should care, but he didn't. She was dead. Felicity had joined a very long list of people who were dead because of him—a list that started with Shado and ended with his mother. But now it ended with her.

_"Promise me._" She had made him promise, and John was right. It was the least he could do. He looked down at her, one last time, and turned. Firing a grappling hook from his bow, he rappelled from the roof. He could swear that he heard the stairwell door open as he left, and that he could hear Sara and Lance's twin cries of horror.

She was gone.


	2. We can't go back

He ended up back at the Foundry. The place she had built for them. The place that in a matter of days would no longer be theirs to use, thanks to his stupidity with Isabel Rochev. Felicity had told them they would need to start moving equipment soon, because Felicity was always aware of the logistics of their operation. She made sure he had what he needed.

Why could he see, only now, that _she_ was what he had needed. How had he missed it?

Her chair sat empty. The computers were still on, the screen savers active. He knew the one on the left would still show the map of the Glades that she had pulled up the night before, as the prepared to go after the mirakuru army.

He had never imagined it would be the last time he would see her at those computers. He heard a guttural sound, and realized that he was making it.

He stumbled to the bathroom to wash the red that stained his hands away. Except when he looked in the mirror, he realized there was blood everywhere—on his face and his hair, on his hands, in his suit. Her blood. Too much of her blood had spilled out of the wounds that Slade had created, until there was nothing left for her heart to move anymore. And so she had died. Because of him.

He had promised to protect her, he had told her that he relyed on her and that he didn't know how to do this without her. But when Slade had to him one more had to die . . . he hadn't seen it. He hadn't even thought of her. Why? Why, when now it was so glaringly obvious? He turned on the shower—another of Felicity's additions while he was "away"—and stepped in, fully clothed. He hung his head down and watched the blood circle endlessly down the drain. Red circling in the water, spiraling down the dark hole of the drain.

He wasn't sure how lon he stood there, or how long it took for the water to run clean. Eventually he pulled off the soaking leather, hanging it to dry on the hooks. She probably would have come early in the morning, taking it down and cleaning it so that it was waiting, ready in its case in case he needed it the following night. She would have done that, if she were still alive. Because those were the sort of things she did that he had noticed, but never really appreciated. He didn't care if the suit ever came off the hook.

He dried off and changed into the clothes he kept in the small locker she had installed for each of them when he was "away." He was glad that this place would be a part of their past soon, because everywhere he looked, he saw things that reminded him of her. She had remade this place to somewhere they all wanted to be. A place they could feel safe, and consider home.

The chair sat empty next to the computers, reminding him of his latest failure.

The door opened, and he looked up to see what was left of his team come down the stairs. Sara, dressed in street clothes. Roy, still in his red hoodie and mask. Dig, eyes still looking vacant and dead. Laurel was in the lead, and the only one with dry eyes. She sported a bruise on her face from her kidnapping—Slade seemed to know him better than he knew himself. Laurel ran the last few steps and threw herself into his arms. He closed his eyes, unable to make himself hug her back. He felt a sudden whole in his chest as he thought of the time he had come down the stairs in December, after fighting Cyrus Gold that last time.

It was the last time she had asked him to promise her something, before tonight. He hadn't been certain he could keep that promise, so he hadn't made it. He hadn't wanted to lie to her. She had been so relieved when he had returned that she had flown into his arms when he had come down the stairs. That was the night she had put the mask on him the first time. She had called him a hero. And he had failed her. Slade was cured and most likely in prison now, and he supposed they had saved the city, but she was gone. Why had it not occurred to him that Slade would target the one person who had always, _always_ believed in him.

He realized Laurel was still hugging him, and he stepped back, away from her. "I'm so glad you're okay, Ollie," she said.

He laughed, a dry, painful, morose sound. Because he was not okay. Not even close. And if Laurel had any clue about this team, she would know that.

Laurel looked at him with confusion in her eyes, and started to speak, but Sara saved him from it.

"Dad's with her," she said, and her voice broke. "They're taking her to the morgue, and he's expecting you." She stepped up and took his hands in hers. "You don't have to go, but . . ."

He nodded, swallowing past the lump in his throat, unable to speak. He looked to Roy, who had pulled the mask down around his neck. It was crazy that the kid had come out of the mirakuru with the cure remembering nothing of the time he had been under the mirakuru's control, but able to shoot better than he had at any point in his training.

_"Does this team have a name, like Team Arrow or something?"_ He remembered the kids voice as he had introduced him to his team.

_"These are the only two that matter." _He'd said it, he'd remembered then how important they were. Why hadn't he thought of Dig and Felicity when Slade had said one more had to die?

"Thea's safe," the kid said, pulling him out of his agony for a second with the name of his sister. "She knows it was me, but I don't think she suspects . . ." Roy shook his head.

Oliver gave a tight nod and looked to Dig. The older man's jaw worked, and he realized whatever words he hoped Dig would have for him, there would be none. There was nothing here for him right now. A room full of people, and there was nothing to hold him. He turned for the stairs.

"Where are you going to go?" It was Laurel again. He exhaled and closed his eyes. "The mansion is gone, burned to the ground. . ." she said. Oh yes, he had forgotten that bit of news. "You can come stay with me. You can _both_ come stay with me." Because Laurel thought he and Sara were still together. Laurel thought his employee had died, nothing more. She didn't understand who Felicity was. She hadn't known her. He couldn't think of a single thing to say.

Diggle held a key out to him. Of course John would have a key to her place. He had been there for her when Oliver couldn't be. When he had ran to Lian Yu, when he was worried about Slade coming after Sara . . . Dig had always kept watch over her. He remembered the last time Diggle had walked away from their mission, when he had chosen to help Laurel over helping with Deadshot.

_"It will always be Laurel. Everyone else be damned_." He looked at the man who he trusted with his life, and he saw it then. He saw the blame and the anger hidden under the pain.

Diggle held him responsible.

As he should. Because he and John were all Felicity had, and neither of them had been there for her. They had both been distracted by other women while Slade went after her. It was ridiculous how easily they had been played.

He took the key, and he ran.


End file.
